So wait...

[Quzar]

I have a question about the American political system.

In terms of presidential elections, technically speaking, you elect a person to say for your state or county or whatever who the president should be, correct?

If this is the case, 2 things.

1) I take it there are laws in place to stop someone from going "LOL SWERVE CITY" and declaring for some other guy

and

2) Do these people have any other role in goverment, or is that it?

Yes, technically we do not vote directly for the President. Technically, there's nothing in place (at a federal level) to stop someone from voting for someone other than who they're supposed to, but about half of the states have state-level laws in effect to prevent that from happening (see this).

But it happens in other states. Part of the reason it works this way is that for the elector to consider other circumstances than pure vote count, for instance an undervoting/underrepresented minority (the whole point of them is to help balance the power between high and low population states).This has only made a difference in 2 or 3 elections ever though. In one, a candidate died between the popular vote and electoral vote (this one was in the 1800s), and the others had to do with really close ties (in which case it tends to come down to the granularity visible in 540 votes vs millions). These didn't really have to do with individuals voting contrary to their represented population, but just that the final count of popular vote and electoral vote put someone else ahead.

[Ex-Cyber]

The thing that kills me about the strident Republican opposition to "Obamacare" is that the cornerstone of it, the mandate. was supported by Republicans in the 90s as the market-based alternative to "Hillarycare". But now that it's Democrats implementing it, it's magically socialism.

[Jeeba Jabba]

I'm not saying I have a perfect solution or that Britain is any better. I just see it as strange that a democrat prsident is in power, but the republicans now have the power to stop him from doing pretty much everything he wants to do. Maybe I'm wrong about that, the news coverage just gave me that impression (which is why I originally posted in Null).

This is because of the long-dead tradition of the President being merely a legislative figurehead, whose primary purpose was to keep the peace and the Union intact, and serve as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. He wasn't intended to push law or economics. This died with Grover Cleveland.

[Ex-Cyber]

Boney actually has the basic model right, as fucked up as it sounds. The way it works now is that electing a President is practically electing a party by proxy. The President acts as both the de jure executive officer of the nation and as the de facto leader of a party. So there's a lot more invested in the Presidency than the Constitutional duties would suggest. Of course, this causes all kinds of interesting issues if the legislature goes to the other party in the midterms (which is usually interpreted as disapproval of the agenda and/or effectiveness of the President's party). pavelbure is also correct in saying that this is not how the country was set up, though that on its own doesn't mean much ("three fifths of all other persons", heh).

[pavelbure]

T

Obama has frequently tried to reach out the olive branch to the Republicans in Congress, and they've slapped it away every time. Partisanship is what is ruining this country at the moment. Partisanship is why nothing has been getting done to fix the problems.

Was this before or after he locked the republicans out of the healthcare "reform" ?

[BlueCrab]

T

Obama has frequently tried to reach out the olive branch to the Republicans in Congress, and they've slapped it away every time. Partisanship is what is ruining this country at the moment. Partisanship is why nothing has been getting done to fix the problems.

Was this before or after he locked the republicans out of the healthcare "reform" ?

He never locked them out. They refused to participate. When it was blatantly clear that they were never going to actually play ball, he went ahead with a partisan solution because it would pass based on the majorities held in Congress. Don't act like George W. Bush didn't do the same exact thing while he had both houses of Congress on his side. He did, many, many times. Not to mention that they used the same "dirty tricks" (using the right's words here, not my opinion of the tactic) that the Democrats did with the health care bill (using reconciliation many times to make sure that there was no possibility of a filibuster).

That said, the bill that was passed contains many of the Republican suggested policies. Not only that, but the Republicans themselves proposed the part that everyone on the right seems to hate the most (the individual coverage mandate was proposed by the Republicans in the 1990s back when everyone was making a big fuss about "Hillarycare"). Oh yeah, and the bill that did pass looks a whole lot more like that Republican healthcare bill from 1993 than anything that the "left" really wanted.

[pixel]

T

Obama has frequently tried to reach out the olive branch to the Republicans in Congress, and they've slapped it away every time. Partisanship is what is ruining this country at the moment. Partisanship is why nothing has been getting done to fix the problems.

Was this before or after he locked the republicans out of the healthcare "reform" ?

Considering what could have been passed for reform, you should thank the Democrats. With a single-payer option off the table indefinitely, the GOP should be glad their constituents don't think they acted like wussy second graders.

Also, you are the perfect example of non-partisanship.

[Eviltaco64X]

To everyone with their different views in this thread:


At least he's not the President. Fuck.

[pavelbure]

T

Obama has frequently tried to reach out the olive branch to the Republicans in Congress, and they've slapped it away every time. Partisanship is what is ruining this country at the moment. Partisanship is why nothing has been getting done to fix the problems.

Was this before or after he locked the republicans out of the healthcare "reform" ?

He never locked them out. They refused to participate. When it was blatantly clear that they were never going to actually play ball, he went ahead with a partisan solution because it would pass based on the majorities held in Congress. Don't act like George W. Bush didn't do the same exact thing while he had both houses of Congress on his side. He did, many, many times. Not to mention that they used the same "dirty tricks" (using the right's words here, not my opinion of the tactic) that the Democrats did with the health care bill (using reconciliation many times to make sure that there was no possibility of a filibuster).

That said, the bill that was passed contains many of the Republican suggested policies. Not only that, but the Republicans themselves proposed the part that everyone on the right seems to hate the most (the individual coverage mandate was proposed by the Republicans in the 1990s back when everyone was making a big fuss about "Hillarycare"). Oh yeah, and the bill that did pass looks a whole lot more like that Republican healthcare bill from 1993 than anything that the "left" really wanted.

Yeah yeah yeah, just because some limpy republicans wanted that in 1993 does not mean I or many americans want it in 2010. Also, a lot of those people just got their asses handed to them this election, which is why this movement started. So please don't lump me in with everything the republicans do. Hell, there is still a lot more cleaning that needs done in that party. Same with the democrats.

[DaMadFiddler]

Bill Maher, in a great breakdown of what's wrong with the public discourse:

And finally New Rule, if you’re going to have a rally where hundreds of thousands of people show up, you might as well go ahead and make it about something. With all due respect to my friends Jon and Stephen, it seems to me that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you’d side with the sane and the reasonable and not try to pretend that the insanity is equally distributed in both parties.

Keith Olbermann is right when he says he’s not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts. The other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance’s sake, that the left is just as violent and cruel as the right, that unions are just as powerful as corporations, that reverse racism is damaging as racism. There’s a difference between a “mad man” and a “madman”. […]

But the message of the rally as I heard it was that if the media would just stop giving voice to the crazies on both sides then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side, forgetting that Obama tried that and found out, there are no moderates on the other side. […]

You see, Republicans keep staking out a position that is further and further right and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle, which is not now the middle any more. That’s the reason health care reform is so watered down. It’s Bob Dole’s old plan from 1994. Same thing with cap and trade; it was the first president Bush’s plan to deal with carbon emissions. Now the Republican plan for climate change is to claim it’s a hoax. But it’s not. […]

Two opposing sides don’t necessarily have two compelling arguments. Martin Luther King spoke on that Mall in the Capitol. He didn’t say “Remember folks, those southern sheriffs with the fire hose and the German Shepherds, they have a point too. No. He said “I have a dream” and they have a nightmare.

This isn’t team Edward and team Jacob. Liberals like the ones on that field must stand up and be counted and not pretend that we’re as mean or greedy or short sighted or just plain batshit as they are.

And if that’s too polarizing for you and you still want to reach across the aisle and hold hands and sing with someone on the right, try church.

[ASCIIN]

What scares me about these new tea party members(Republicans X) is that even in our very bad economy(which would have been worse if obama hand done the stimulus) they are very strongly motivated on unemployment and social security services reform(i.e. cuts) then restructuring the wealth by the 3% hike on the quarter million makers which would make for a better strategy in my opinion